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Thursday, December 17, 2015

In Remembrance of Lives Lost to Stigma and Enforcement

By Annie Temple

I wrote this poem one night after working a drop-in program in Surrey BC Canada for street-based sex workers. One of our regular attendees came in distraught because she'd been raped by someone posing as a client. Processing someone else's pain can be difficult. It's called vicarious traumatization.

A few months later, this same woman entered a recovery house. She avoided the drugs she was addicted to for two months before relapsing. It was her last relapse. She overdosed and died. I loved her. I will never forget her.

Today is December 17th - International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Today, please carry a red umbrella in remembrance of the lives lost and your commitment to ending violence against sex workers. Today, talk to people about what this day means. It means we will not stand idly by while our most marginalized citizens suffer.

The poem below refers to women in the sex industry, but we all know that sex work is not a strictly feminine occupation. The drop-in I worked at when I wrote the poem, however, was for women only as that was the only funding we could access at the time.

That is also something for you to think about. How we, as a society, prioritize women's programs over programs for men and other-gendered people. And how most people don't even consider sex work outside of a violence against women narrative. This is faulty. Take responsibility for your misconception. Learn. Become an ally so that lives may be saved. Sex work is not inherently dangerous and sex workers are not only women.

In loving remembrance of sex workers everywhere who have suffered, been silenced, and perished due to violence, stigma, enforcement, and oppression. xoxo

I Look Like One of Them In Memory of Katherine (formerly known on the streets of Surrey as KitKat)

I look like one of themNo hard lines that make my age hard to determineOne of them – my people, their people (in denial)They cast judgment without any trial.

I look like one of themThose who pass judgment and condemnThose who’ve never seen what these women have seenOr heard their voices even though they scream.

Doctors, nurses, cops, and johnsIt always depends which side that they’re onThose who see past the socially-imposed shameOr those who ridicule, abuse, and lay blame.

I can barely contain this, my anger, my rageEvery war story told, I lock down like a cageBut my outrage keeps building and alas my heart burstsI don’t know how to carry this burden, this curse.

I don’t walk in their shoes, roof over my headI don’t have my things stolen when I go to bedEach night I return to a warm, peaceful homeI can sit at my desk and type up this poem.

I look like one of themI’m ashamed some are friendsWith their “shoulds” and “get off drugs”With their “pimps” and “hookers” and “thugs”

Talking like they have a clueWhen nothing’s farther from the truthCause you cannot understandIf you can afford your Dairyland.

The welfare agents, the landlords, and neighboursThe power they wield, with their conditional “favours”The sweeping statements they make about worthTo women who’ve lived through much more than childbirth.

I bow down to the strength of these women at warStanding strong, taking on the hard path of the whoreEven during the times when the pain’s just too greatHow these women withstand, overcome, and create.

I’m one person who does not know how to go onBecause losing a war like this is so wrongThey’re winning because all our soldiers are woundedA world that is blind has so woefully doomed it.

There’s no good way to end this ode that I tellSometimes as women, we find things to sellI don’t think that means that we’re not like the restJust they haven’t had to put their judgments to test.

And really what matters is only our soulsThe parts of ourselves that no one ever stoleThey tried but we begged, borrowed, boosted, and liedAnd though some sisters were stolen, many still have survived.

Not one passage has passed with no one to mournThough we may not know Jane Doe for the day she was bornAnd we wage this deadly war against unfathomable oddsOffering up our most burdened moments to God.

#decriminalize #sexwork

About the Author

Annie Temple is the stage and writing name of Trina Ricketts. Trina has 17 years experience as a striptease artist and 15 years as a sex worker rights activist, but she's been a rebel all her life. In 2000, she founded NakedTruth.ca to support other entertainers by reducing isolation, educating about health and safety, sharing information about gigs, challenging stereotypes, teaching etiquette to customers, and organizing in-person events for charity and to promote ethical businesses in the industry. Some of the groups and functions that Trina is associated with are Exotic Dancers for Cancer (now BoobaPalooza), The Naked Truth Adult Entertainment Awards,Trade Secrets Guide, BC Coalition of Experiential Communities, Canadian Union of Naked Trades, as well as several community sex worker supportive organizations. Trina is a mom of three, a lover of writing and dancing. Currently she continues to run NakedTruth.ca and recently she founded Digital Activist Media - a project to investigate digital activism strategies and share them with other change-makers. Trina's activism efforts have expanded to include many issues, but her main activities involve sex worker and health freedom rights.